Flight suit worn on 1st all-private astronaut mission to ISS debuts on display

When Michael Lopez-Alegria commanded the first privately funded crewed mission to visit the International Space Station, he traded his NASA "blues" for a "Deep Space" and "Mesosphere" flight suit.

Two years later, the public can get an up-close look at those new hues for human spaceflight while touring NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Lopez-Alegria's Axiom Space Ax-1 suit went on display on Thursday (Nov. 21) alongside the retired space shuttle Atlantis.

"Ironically, that is the only orbiter I did not fly on," said Lopez-Alegria in an interview with collectSPACE.com. "So I've never been in Atlantis in space, but I've been in it on the ground quite a bit when I was an astronaut support person, checking out its switch configuration and things like that before [other crews'] launched."

The Ax-1 mission, which was organized and operated by the Houston-based space services company Axiom Space, marked the first time that NASA allowed a privately selected crew to live and work aboard the space station. 

Related: Axiom Space Ax-1 mission: The first all-private crew to the International Space Station

Lopez-Alegria launched on the 17-day flight on April 8, 2022 with U.S. entrepreneur and nonprofit activist investor Larry Connor; Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy; and impact investor and philanthropist Eytan Stibbe of Israel.

Lopez-Alegria, who was a NASA astronaut from 1992 to 2012, logged more than 257 days on his first four missions. He is the first person to command both civil and commercial orbital spaceflights, as well as the first NASA veteran to revisit the space station as a private individual.

The Ax-1 mission and his flight suit "represents the next chapter" after the space shuttle, he said.

"Commercial human spaceflight was not even on anybody's radar back in the heyday of the shuttle. And now it's a thing, and the shuttles are not," said Lopez-Alegria. "So its a bit of another era in history. I'm proud to be in there with Atlantis."

As Ax-1 commander and Axiom Space's chief astronaut, Lopez-Alegria gave his input into the design of the flight suits, but most of the credit goes to Italian outfitter Loro Piana. Working with a list of material requirements, including that the suit be flame and high temperature resistant, Loro Piana came up with several options that featured Axiom Space's corporate color palette, including "Deep Space" black and "Mesosphere" blue.

Later versions of the uniform, such as the one worn by Lopez-Alegria and three his crewmates on his second Axiom Space mission, Ax-3, in February of this year, removed the "Mesosphere" highlight from the suit's legs but added a "Troposphere" orange stripe along both shoulders.

"I think these look a lot more stylish the NASA flight suits. The agency's suits are not tailored, so they look kind of baggy on most people. These are a much nicer look," Lopez-Alegria told collectSPACE.

Lopez-Alegria's Ax-1 flight suit is the second of the company's astronaut uniforms to go on public display. In January, Axiom Space's director of human spaceflight Peggy Whitson loaned her Ax-2 flight suit to Space Center Houston in Texas. Whitson has been provided another suit to wear when she leads the Ax-4 crew next year.

Lopez-Alegria's flight suit will be on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex throughout 2025. The exhibit is part of the complex's "Discover Something Real" campaign, which highlights the past, present and future of space exploration and interplanetary travel.

"I was very proud to put on the Axiom Space suit, what it is we're doing here at the company and in commercial human spaceflight in general," said Lopez-Alegria.

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